Noah in Egypt Before Flood? Part One (b): Cain and Abel (original) (raw)
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Noah in Egypt Before Flood? Part One (c): Two World Views
St. Augustine's City of God " presents human history as a conflict between what Augustine calls the Earthly City (often colloquially referred to as the City of Man) and the City of God, a conflict that is destined to end in victory for the latter. The City of God is marked by people who forgot earthly pleasure to dedicate themselves to the eternal truths of God, now revealed fully in the Christian faith. The Earthly City, on the other hand, consists of people who have immersed themselves in the cares and pleasures of the present, passing world ".
Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 2016
The original biblical Noah was not affiliated with the Flood. An early edition of J told of a devastating famine that afflicted the entire earth from the days of Adam and Eve until it was brought to an end on account of Noah. The Proto-J narrative was supplemented with a version of the popular Babylonian Flood story, ironically transforming a story of drought into a tale of torrential rain. It is this Noah who is referenced in Ezekiel and Deutero-Isaiah—not the familiar Flood hero.
A Continuous Narrative of Postdiluvian History, 2009
The historical record of humankind in the third millennium before Christ bears the stamp of Noah's family and of the events and structures outlined in Genesis 9-11. The purpose of monogenetic study is to consolidate the Biblical explanation of human origins by generating a historical science based on the family of Noah. The goal is to create a coherent Christian synthesis of the disjointed data of antiquarian study. This goal was pursued by a variety of authors between 1650 and 1820: Samuel Bochart, Paul Pezron, William Stukeley, Jacob Bryant, Sir William Jones, George Faber, and others. My logic resembles theirs. The difference between my work and theirs lies in the data furnished by archaeology since the discovery of the Sumerians around 1880. The challenge of my work is to combine their logic with the essential information unavailable to them. An obvious question is why this work has not been done by others. There are several answers. The most basic is that Biblical monogenesis has been unpopular in historical science since the 1880's, largely through the influence of Darwinism. Another reason concerns the issue of eccentricity. Bryant, Pezron, and others were often perceived as eccentric. Biblical monogenesis tends to breed eccentricity because of its extraordinarily daring implications. For example, a self-evident feature of any monogenetic scheme is the role of incest, inasmuch as all males and females are members of the same universal family; but incest is just one of a series of bizarre logical consequences of Biblical monogenesis. 1The most important of these concerns the degree and type of political authority to be found in Noah's postdiluvian family. The political factor distinguishes my viewpoint, first from the Darwinian anthropologists, but ultimately from the whole tenor of empirical scholarship in the modern democratic era. To the conservatives, Noah is the passive recipient of divine instruction and of a salvation experience but is not an agent of charismatic political power. In other words, Noah has been conceived as a pious but hapless old man in a bathrobe. Whether or not the gradualist approach to antiquity compromises with Darwinism, it strikes me as unworthy of a Bible, which stresses dispensational revolutions and displays of power. Noah survived the Flood in order to build a world; and worlds are not built without the intervention of great political and creative power. Noah's family were the human building blocks of the nations and were the most powerful ruling house in the history of humankind, prototypes of the Emperors of Agade and the Pharaohs of Egypt. In fact, this understates the case. Noah's family was a kind of solar nucleus to all the primary linguistic stocks of humankind. These stocks are to Noah what the twelve tribes of Israel were to Jacob, except that Noah's postdiluvian longevity of 350 years enabled him to witness their growth from individual families to large tribes or nations, each capable of generating its own independent civilization.
The announcement early this year by British Museum Assyriologist Irving Finkel of the discovery of a second millennium BCE cuneiform tablet detailing another version of the Mesopotamian flood story has attracted considerable interest. This is due both to the intrinsic appeal of discovering a cuneiform text outlining the flood narrative, as well as for the news that it states how animals entered a round ark ‘two by two’ a detail that previously was found only in the Genesis narrative.
Skeptics of Christianity have long viewed the creation and flood stories in Genesis as being borrowed from earlier stories from the ancient Near East (ANE) because there are numerous similarities between the ANE and Genesis stories. Because the Genesis stories are borrowed and not unique, then why call Genesis (and the rest of the Bible for that matter) inspired by God? This viewpoint conflicts with the traditional Christian viewpoint that God supernaturally revealed all of the details of the creation and the flood to Moses and that Moses recorded this detail in the book of the Bible we call Genesis. I have never been comfortable with either of these viewpoints. So that led me to research and to write this paper. The purpose of this paper is as follows: 1. To show that Genesis must be understood within the context of the ANE. 2. To briefly examine the similarities and differences between the Genesis creation and flood stories and the corresponding ANE stories. 3. To look at the explanations of the similarities from #2 and propose what I believe is the correct explanation. 4. To examine how all of the above affects the biblical doctrine of inspiration.
2020
Bedihiyyat (Reality) is an important topic in Qur"ānic interpretation. Some of the commentators have conveyed many irrational and contradictory things as they interpret the Qur"ān without observing reality. One of them is the comments about the flood and the ark of Noah. The Islamic scholars and commentators who took advantage of the information in the Torah say that the flood is all over the earth and the earth is filled with water and the ship descends on Ararat (Ağrı). Today's archaeological studies are generally carried out on these mountains based on the information in the Torah. However, this thought is both geologically irrational and contradicted with the universal principle of the Qur"ān "No bearer of burdens will bear the burden of another. We will not punish unless we send a prophet"(al-Isrāʾ 17/15) Despite the great and long struggle of Noah they did not accept the invitation of Noah and thus were being destroyed by the flood. Already the Torah"s which in circulation were written after the deportation of Jews to Mesopotamia famous for the exile of Babylon. In this period (BC. 586) Jerusalem was burned down by Nebuchadnezzar (BC. 605-562) and those who knew the Torah were slaughtered. Many mythological and wrong things and the expression of Ararat are thought to have entered the Torah during this period. Today, some Western researchers suggest that the Mount Judī, which the Qur"ān points to, is the best and right choice for where the ship landed, and they suggest that it is necessary to excavate here for the remains of the ship. Al-Kalbī, who gives information about the gods and beliefs of the Jahiliyya period, states in the Book that the deities of Noah"s people are worshiped in various parts of the Arabian Peninsula. In fact, archaeological excavations in these regions are confirmed with this. Both Islamic sources and archaeological excavations indicate that the Flood event took place in Mesopotamia. Based on this information and materials, we can tell that the place where the Noah people lived is Mosul and its surroundings. Al-Kalbī, who gives information about the gods and beliefs of the Jahiliyya period in his Kitāb al-Aṣnām, is mentioned that some of the gods worshiped in various parts of the Arabian Peninsula are the gods of the Noah people. The fact that Noah had lived in this region is almost evident. As a matter of fact, archaeological excavations in various ancient cities of Mesopotamia confirmed this information and it was understood that Noah was a prophet sent to the people in this region. At the same time, these findings indicate that the flood event took place in Mesopotamia in the late Sumerians in the end of the four thousand BC and the beginning of the three thousand BC, in the pursuit of the eighth king of this state. In this way, the determination of Noah's presence and the flood has made a great sense in the history of religions. Because Noah is the oldest prophet of mankind's history, the clear transmission of divine messages to society began with him. "When Our command came and the oven overflowed, we said, "Load upon it (i.e the ship) of each (creature) two mates and your family, except those about whom the Word (i.e decree) has preceded, and (include)whoever has believed. "But none had believed in him, except a few" (Nūḥ 11/40). It can be said from the verse that very few people boarded the ship. "Load upon it… each (creature) two mates" although in this case it is interpreted as get a pair from each of the living species, this is not true and contrary to reality. Because it is appreciated that it is impossible to take a couple of animals from every animal in the world. In our opinion, this expression can be interpreted in two ways: First, it is meant pairs of animals needed. These animals are also pets that will help their ship survive the flood and give them milk and eggs. Couples are ram, sheep, lodge, goat, hen and rooster animals. Or, as Fak̲ h̲ r al-Dīn al-Rāzī stressed it is meant the couples that are ordered by God to Noah to be loaded onto the ship. The Islamic scholar believes that the place where the ship landed was the Judī Mountain in Jizra. It was rumoured that some of the Muslims in the early periods of Islam saw the remains of this ship. Some
The Genesis Flood: 50 years on
Origins, 2011
In this article we will trace the history of Christian thought that led to The Genesis Flood being written and seek to evaluate its impact over the last five decades.
Traces of Genesis Flood in so-called Stone Ages
Not only did the great Noachic Flood about which we read in the Book of Genesis - and which was made the subject of a highly controversial movie - really occur, but evidence of it is still archaeologically discernible.